(urth) AEG clones

[James Wynn]

Roy took umbrage:
> James Wynn quoted from two different paragraphs I wrote and tied them
> together with [...] (minus the brackets), which distorts the meaning:

First off: This is unmitigated crap. I tied together the points I was 
directly responding to with an ellipsis . Since when are the additional 
brackets required? Anyone following the thread will have read the original 
post for its full beauty. It's fine for you to clarify, but the segments I 
provided do not distort the meaning of anything you said. I certainly didn't 
do anything to *dishonestly* distort their meaning as your reply implied 
(intentionally or not). Is there a point in the original that deserves 
reiteration? Is there a nuance that didn't carry the first time? Okay. That 
happens to me too.

> The text-based solution I meant, as the remainder of my original paragraph
> makes clear, is the solution to the question of what green dress Cassie 
> wore
> before the play that Reis could have seen her wearing.

Didn't carry. And it's not text based either, which is probably why it 
didn't. Reis never said AFAIK that he saw Cassie in the dress *before* the 
play. He said he saw Cassie wearing the dress at the party. Quote: "I was 
thinking of the party. I took you home, remember?" Maybe he lied. But then 
the whole conversation is a lie without any mixture of truth. So, maybe he's 
lying about her being in a green dress the first time he saw her as well? 
Maybe he's lying about loving her? Maybe Gid had him take her home from the 
mountain. But why all the lies? He knows that Cassie is working for Gid. 
Either way, he knows she knows he knows she is working for Gid.

On the other hand, we have Wolfe's M.O. of having people tell apparent lies 
that end up being the truth. This theory doesn't fit that, but your previous 
one did.

> Inelegantly? Oh, dear. As for the mysteries, they come with the territory.

Roy, you discarded (perhaps only temporarily) an explanation **for this 
scene** that tied up a bunch of loose ends in a single sweep and devised one 
instead that generates out of thin air an entire novel's worth of mysteries. 
"Comes with the territory"? You're leveraging the Lousiana Purchase with 
pocket change. It doesn't mean its not true, but it certainly isn't based on 
a more *literal* reading.

>Only if there really are clones of Reis in the story. No smoking gun has 
>yet
>been found. The loden dress doesn't kill the clone theory.

But it *is* an alternate theory. And as for being useful as a theory, it 
creates a irresolvable mess that would turn further consideration of "what 
is really going on" into pure augury.

The answer isn't going to come as a smoking gun. It's going to come from the 
preponderance of the evidence. It will come from an explanation (or a short 
list of explanations) that makes the story fit together.

J.